Enjoyable humor with a subtle lesson about parents accepting a child who is different.
Two dogs find an egg in a nest and try to teach a newly hatched baby bird how to be a puppy.
Readers see at the opening of the book that egg and nest were left for the dogs by a mischievous, black cat. (There is no hint as to what’s happened to the mother bird.) The cat hides a note in the nest advising the dogs to sit on the nest, hatch the egg, and “teach baby to be a good dog.” The clueless canines fall for this setup, sitting on the egg through rain and snow until a tiny bluebird hatches. The bird, spotting the gray, male bulldog, immediately imprints on the dog, repeating “Ma-ma” as he looks at the dog lovingly. The male bird is dubbed Junior, and the dog parents try to teach him proper dog behaviors, such as growling and rolling over. The bird follows his own instincts, responding with “tweet”s and pulling a worm out of the ground, until the dogs finally realize their baby is really a bird. When the black cat reappears to laugh at the situation, the bird scares the cat away with an enormous “WOOF!” in huge display type. Czekaj’s digitally produced illustrations have a flat, comic-strip look, complementary to the broad humor and primary color palette. The dialogue is set off in white speech balloons in large type that will be accessible to both new readers and older readers who need a simple storyline.
Enjoyable humor with a subtle lesson about parents accepting a child who is different. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-228018-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
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